A long
time ago on a ship far, far away I’d once heard that the journey of a thousand
miles begins with a rudder and a leaky hull. That’s why in the ol’ United
States Navy Seaman Canoe Club, regulations require that we practice for
emergencies, with things like fire drills and abandon ship drills on a periodic
basis, where we gather together in one place for the “We’re all gonna die”
talk.
It seemed
like every few months we’d run abandon ship drills and looking over all the
shipmates in our lifeboat stations, I got bunched up with some pretty shady characters.
Once the
drill was called over the 1MC’ they’d give us the nearest land in range and
bearing usually several thousand feet below, rather the neighbors are friendly,
cannibals or head hunters as well as wind direction, and water temperature so
you knew if your bullocks were gonna play peek-a-boo behind your kidneys or
become fish food for the friendly sharks down below.
The drill
was always the same … grab your coat, your rubber ducky and make sure you’re
wearing your flash gear, and head for your muster point … mine was usually the forecastle.
Let me tell you, when the sun was beating down and you were in full GQ dress-up
mode, it got hotter than a southern frying pan.
The drill
was staged but it still would catch somebody off guard no matter how planned
the effort was. That’s when the “Boat Captain” usually a Chief, would chime in…
"Well,
Fuck me running. Look who decided to show up. You run like old people fuck! Now
engage your brain son and hurry your ass up … you’re keeping the sharks
waiting."
Then we’d
pair up like the animals on the Ark. My earliest memories were filled with a
bunch of chambray-wearing non-producing no good for nothing scallywag
scoundrels spending half the time pointing, laughing, wise-cracking, and
pissing & moaning until the drill was secured. We cussed, told off-color
jokes, talked about breast sizes and the perfect ass on a woman, hunting,
fishing, fast cars, and where we would hang out when we got back import. The
Chief called a few of us worthless and incapable of standing an independent
watch. Then he would yell out…
“Now
listen up you degenerates, you aren't learning much with your cocksuckers flapping
in the wind. Smalley … Get out here front and center. I know they make the
flat-chested cheerleaders stand in the back for the yearbook picture but they
don't make them go hide behind the bleachers. Now get out here, I need you to
be my test dummy!”
“Chief, what
do we do if shit ever really hits the fan?”
… Chief
would respond…
"We got
any witch doctors, or snake handlers, or any of them speak in tongue types around
here? Because we’re gonna need some special kind of voodoo magic if the shit
ever gets that bad!”
Then Chief
would explain to us all in no uncertain terms…
"Gentlemen, one of the most terrible things
about war… It takes the cream of a nation's manhood… Not the sick, the lame and
the lazy… Not the worthless degenerate bastards… War sacrifices the finest
young men. That’s why we train. Statistically, when ships go down, it’s either painfully
slow or disturbingly quick.”
Then he’d
tell us how our chances of survival would diminish exponentially with every
weighing minute and remind us that it could take at least three days for anyone
to reach us in our current position. Then he’d break out a cardboard box
labeled “Packaged by the Oklahoma League for the Blind,” and talk a little
about the food we’d share as he opened the box.
Out fell packages of colorful little candies called charms that were
loaded with calories … as if abandoning a sinking vessel isn’t bad luck enough.
I guess somebody had one hell of a sense of humor.
“Remember
that drop off the platform you did in Bootcamp? Well, that’s the same one you’re
gonna do here. Cross your ankles and arms, close your eyes, and you’ll do just
fine.”
Well that
put everyone at ease. Now I knew where the term pucker factor came from … based
on the watertight integrity of your ass sphincter as you dropped some thirty
feet down into the water.
Then he’d
go on and on how everyone is gonna get sick in the life raft …
“Your
best bet is to chum the water and you’d better not get any on me!”
Then he’d
go over the canned water, the dry matches, how to take a shit in the deep blue, and so on and so on…
Keep in
mind we were sweating our asses off in our flash hoods, flash gloves, pants
tucked into our ‘black socks’, and a MK1 rubber ducky around our necks while he quizzed
us to death as we threw wrong answers around like a hooker’s underwear.
“Jones,
if we run out of water, do you drink the sea water?”
"Why are you asking me? I'm
not screwing this goat … I'm just holding the tail!"
The lifeboats
themselves? They were pretty impressive … You pulled on a release cable that
broke the canister the raft was secured in as it fell out and inflated on the
way down. Not that I’d want to set one-off, but you’ve got to admit, they were
pretty cool to watch.
That’s
how this ol’ coot remembers it. I don’t know if today’s boys and girls still do
it the same way as us old farts, but I
can’t imagine much has changed except for the GPS and the flying drones and
neon-lighted butt plugs … and God help us … I could only imagine!
